>but if you end it tomorrow, it won't solve a single one of these systemic issues.
Why not? The war on drugs is absolutely unenforceable - that leads to police picking and choosing what to enforce which amplifies systemic biases they have. You cannot enforce drug laws accountably, not least because it is largely racist in origin and as such targeted at specific minority groups - let alone practicalities
There's a fantastic Vice interview of an British ex-undercover drugs officer: He summarizes most of his career as having been spent ruining the lives of poor people around him and his crowning achievement being a bust that (in the words of one of his colleagues apparently) "interrupted the illegal drug trade in stoke for upwards of 20 minutes"
The police can always pick and choose what they enforce. Have you ever called them? I am close friends with people who have, multiple times. Getting them to show up is an exercise in pulling teeth. They respond to calls - all calls - in an utterly discretionary nature.
As they currently operate, they can't even do any part of their job accountably. Drug legalization is just a pet issue for techies, that is a smoke-screen that distracts from the real issues.
Reducing the police's arrests by ~25% will have a ~linear impact on police brutality. That is, it will reduce brutality by ~25%.
I will take a ~25% reduction, but that is not my goal. The goal is to fix the system, not the symptoms of the system.
Drug laws are a social fad, they will appear, or go away depending on which side of the bed the public wakes up tomorrow. The structural failings of the police, that persist through the presence or repeal of any one law are what need to be fixed.
'Which laws are on the books' is not a structural failure. The police should be capable of doing their jobs, regardless of which laws are on the books. If they aren't doing their jobs, the solution is not to change the laws, it's to change the police.
> Reducing the police's arrests by ~25% will have a ~linear impact on police brutality. That is, it will reduce brutality by ~25%.
Negative. Police brutality is not just driven by the number of interactions, but the likely outcome of those interactions. Dealers are often armed and strongly prefer avoiding prison.
Why not? The war on drugs is absolutely unenforceable - that leads to police picking and choosing what to enforce which amplifies systemic biases they have. You cannot enforce drug laws accountably, not least because it is largely racist in origin and as such targeted at specific minority groups - let alone practicalities
There's a fantastic Vice interview of an British ex-undercover drugs officer: He summarizes most of his career as having been spent ruining the lives of poor people around him and his crowning achievement being a bust that (in the words of one of his colleagues apparently) "interrupted the illegal drug trade in stoke for upwards of 20 minutes"